This article is from the source 'washpo' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/australian-navy-vessel-reports-signals-consistent-with-black-box/2014/04/07/7ce89a18-be12-11e3-b195-dd0c1174052c_story.html?wprss=rss_world
The article has changed 7 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Australian navy vessel reports signals consistent with black box | Australian navy vessel reports signals consistent with black box |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| An Australian navy vessel searching for a missing Malaysian passenger jet has picked up deep-sea acoustic signals “consistent” with those emitted by an airplane’s black box, the leader of the multinational search operation said Monday. | An Australian navy vessel searching for a missing Malaysian passenger jet has picked up deep-sea acoustic signals “consistent” with those emitted by an airplane’s black box, the leader of the multinational search operation said Monday. |
| “Clearly this is a most promising lead, and in the search so far it’s probably the best information we’ve had,” retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said at a news conference in Perth. | “Clearly this is a most promising lead, and in the search so far it’s probably the best information we’ve had,” retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said at a news conference in Perth. |
| Houston said the vessel, the Ocean Shield, picked up the signals on two separate occasions Sunday — once for more than two hours, a second time for 13 minutes. On the second occasion, two distinct noises were detected, which would be expected if both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder are emitting beacons. | Houston said the vessel, the Ocean Shield, picked up the signals on two separate occasions Sunday — once for more than two hours, a second time for 13 minutes. On the second occasion, two distinct noises were detected, which would be expected if both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder are emitting beacons. |
| Still, Australian officials cautioned it could take days to determine whether the acoustic noises are indeed coming from what’s left of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, thought to be at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Confusing matters, a Chinese patrol ship on Friday and Saturday detected signals, about 300 nautical miles from where the Australian vessel is positioned. Officials say it’s unlikely that the signals detected by the two vessels came from the same source. | |
| For at least the next day, the Ocean Shield will continue is slow runs over the small area where it has picked up the acoustics. The goal, Houston said, will be to pinpoint the most likely location of the sound. If that can be done, search crews will lower an autonomous vehicle into the water and onto the three-mile-deep ocean floor to search for wreckage and map out a possible debris field. | For at least the next day, the Ocean Shield will continue is slow runs over the small area where it has picked up the acoustics. The goal, Houston said, will be to pinpoint the most likely location of the sound. If that can be done, search crews will lower an autonomous vehicle into the water and onto the three-mile-deep ocean floor to search for wreckage and map out a possible debris field. |
| “This is not the end of the search,” Houston said. “We’ve still got a lot of difficult, painstaking work to do to confirm this is the spot where the aircraft entered the water. The best evidence we could get is imagery from the autonomous vehicle suggesting the aircraft is on the bottom of the ocean.” | “This is not the end of the search,” Houston said. “We’ve still got a lot of difficult, painstaking work to do to confirm this is the spot where the aircraft entered the water. The best evidence we could get is imagery from the autonomous vehicle suggesting the aircraft is on the bottom of the ocean.” |
| False leads and scant data have hampered the month-long search for the plane, which flew in its final hours through a remote area virtually uncovered by radar. Investigators have tried to piece together the Boeing-777’s likely crash site by analyzing a series of communications the plane made with a satellite while airborne. Both the Australian vessel and the Chinese patrol ship have been operating along the arc that possibly represents the plane’s last known position. | |
| If search teams cannot soon pinpoint the location of the deep sea signals, their job will become more difficult. The batteries powering the airplane’s locator beacons typically last for a month. If the MH370’s black box is transmitting a signal, it might continue only for a matter of hours or days. | |
| The Ocean Shield, using black box detection equipment provided by the U.S. Navy, picked up a signal in a relatively northern part of the search area, about 1,050 miles northwest of Perth. But determining the origin point of the sound will be difficult, said Commodore Peter Leavy, of the Royal Australian Navy. | |
| Underwater, sound waves behave curiously, bending based on the water’s temperature, pressure or salinity. The sound waves, in some instances, can travel great distances laterally. | |
| “It is a markedly different environment than what you see with sound traveling through air,” Leavy said. | |
| The Ocean Shield is outfitted with a beak-like device called a pinger locator, which is dropped into the water and then dragged on back-and-forth runs. Though the search area is huge, the Ocean Shield is now focusing on a three-by-three mile box where it detected the signals Sunday. When dragging the pinger locator, the vessel moves only a few miles per hour, and pulling a U-turn takes three hours, given the complex network of cables it is towing. One out-and-back run takes seven hours, Leavy said. | |
| Normally, the pinger locator glides through the water at a depth of about 9,800 feet, or nearly two miles. But when the Ocean Shield first picked up a signal Sunday, the pinger was positioned closer to the surface — about 1,000 feet. | |
| Australian and U.S. Navy members aboard the ship cut a series of whirring electronic devices to reduce noise, said Cmdr. William Marks, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet. The pinger locator was then dropped to about 5,000 feet. Those aboard then heard the sound for more than two hours. | |
| “As the Ocean Shield moved through the water, signal got stronger, stronger, stronger, then weaker, weaker, weaker,” Marks said. “That’s exactly how you’d expect it if it was the black box.” | |
| The Ocean Shield also has on board a 16-foot long, submarine-like robot called the Bluefin-21, which can explore ocean areas up to three miles deep. The areas where the acoustic signals have been detected are at the limit of the Bluefin’s capability. But if functional at those depths, the Bluefin can use sonar to map out a debris field. It can also take photos of the ocean floor. | |
| Marks said that crew members will deploy the Bluefin only if and when they have a good estimate on where the transmissions are coming from. | |
| “We don’t want to put the Bluefin out there too early in a location where we’re not sure,” he said. “We’d just be roaming around the ocean very ineffectively.” | |
| Officials involved in the search say they’ve grown more optimistic that wreckage from the aircraft will eventually be recovered. The flight, a red-eye from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, inexplicably veered from its flight path less than an hour after take-off in what Malaysian officials describe as a deliberate act from somebody on board. | |
| So far, investigators have revealed little about the criminal investigation into the pilots and passengers. But even if the black box is recovered, the mystery of what happened aboard the aircraft might not be resolved. The cockpit voice recorder keeps only two hours of the latest audio, meaning critical events shortly after takeoff — when the plane was first steered off course — were overwritten as the plane headed south toward the Indian Ocean. |